The use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to track, identify and locate goods has grown significantly in recent years. RFID tags allow manufacturers, distributors and retailers, amongst others, to regulate products and inventory, quickly determine production, manufacture, distribution or retail needs and efficiently intake and outtake items utilizing RFID tags. The RFID tags themselves can provide any desired product data and may be scanned or read in any of a variety of manners.
After the manufacturing process, RFID tags may go through one of several packaging processes. For example, certain types of RFID tags may be packaged into rolls for convenient bulk shipment to the customer. Prior to shipment, however, RFID tags may go through a quality control process, wherein it is determined whether the particular roll of RFID tags meets customer specifications as to yield and consecutive defects. For example, a customer may require that each roll of RFID tags has a 98% yield of working tags, and that no more than five consecutive tags be defective. To determine whether a roll of RFID tags meets customer requirements, each roll can be inspected by going through an editing process. This process typically takes place after the RFID tag roll exits the manufacturing press. Typically the roll of inlays would be taken off of a line and visually inspected, and the defective inlays would then be cut out of the web before the roll was ready for shipment. This process can be time consuming and labor intensive relative to the other steps of the manufacturing process, resulting in bottlenecks prior to shipment.
As RFID manufacturing techniques improve, the yield percentages have increased and the numbers of consecutive defective tags have decreased. In many instances, more than 90% of RFID rolls have met customer requirements. It has thus become desirable to bypass the editing processes so as to streamline the manufacturing process, minimize bottlenecks, and reduce costs.